Yes, I know it’s been a while. It took me a couple minutes to remember how to log back into WordPress. THAT is how long it’s been. I had to enter my password three times before I got it right. Wordpress seemed to give me the stink eye when I successfully logged in, as if to say, “Oh, and NOW you want to see what’s been happening after all this time?”

I’ve been . . . busy.

In reality, no one really cares what I’ve been up to, so let me get to the point of this post. I’ve been on a cleaning spree lately – mucking out the closets, sorting through clothes, and cleaning up all the forgotten places of my 50’s house. I brought a huge load of clothing and household stuff to Goodwill, and that felt pretty awesome to be able to get rid of that much stuff with a single trip. Yesterday was my basement day, and as I was cleaning up my “box corner,” which is the place I put all the boxes I get from online shopping and whatever else – y’know, just in case I need them <cough cough> – I uncovered a couple of non-empty boxes that I had forgotten about.

As I viewed the scrawled handwriting on the side of the box, the day I acquired this treasure came back to me in a flash. I was looking around at a Salvation Army for Midcentury goodies, and I saw these two boxes (containing china service for 14!!) shoved along the wall. I glanced at the pattern and fell in love; it was perfect 50’s simplicity, and the dishes were in remarkable shape. The price for the set was $40, which I hemmed and hawed about initially, but then I remembered: this is service for fourteen. I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I probably drudged up a feel-good mantra about how life is too short and to do what makes you happy. I bought the dishes.

When I got home, I did a little research about the pattern I acquired. The china was stamped with “Taylor Smith Taylor.” Turns out that I bought myself a pattern that probably was from the 50’s (made 1953-1960)- a pattern called “Blue Lace.”

Given that the metallic edges are in great shape, I have a feeling that this china was only used for special occasions. I’d go as far to say “or not at all,” but a few imperfections on some of the pieces suggest otherwise. One teacup is missing a handle, but the packers of the box included it anyway, still carefully wrapped with a 2012 issue of the Los Angeles Times along with Christmas-printed paper towels.

I love the simplicity of this pattern – the blue flowers on white, the silver edging.

I wonder if the person who donated this china to the Salvation Army even knew its worth, since the box had “Lavon’s aqua dishes” scribbled on the side. My overactive imagination can only wonder how Lavon acquired these dishes. How many meals did she used them for? What memories were made around the table as meals were served on these plates? Why didn’t anyone else want Lavon’s china?

I spent a half hour taking each piece from the set and washing it in soapy water, apologizing for the neglect I had shown these dishes since I brought them into my home. The boxes which contained them were mildewy and soggy from wet basement issues and nearly tore apart when I lifted them up.

Obviously, I had not been a good steward of what was probably one of Lavon’s treasured possessions.

The dishes are now clean and in storage in my kitchen, and I will make a point to use them as often as I can. The thought which drove me to purchase them originally keeps popping into my mind as I washed these babies up: Life is short.

In light of my “rediscovery” of these gems, I would add a bit more to that mantra: Life is short; use the good china.

Although I certainly didn’t just sit on my duff all summer long, for I took lots of trips and was able to take care of a lot of house clutter, the pace of life has certainly picked up in the last week alone. School started. I got the stomach flu (which I’m currently still “enjoying”). My grandpa died.

Out of all those things, it’s the last one that has me reeling. I can handle hectic weeks. I can handle the stomach flu. But I always dreaded the time I’d have to say goodbye to my sweet grandfather. He was a good man who lived live with vigor. He beat colon cancer but suffered through countless intestinal issues from the mid-90’s until he died. Even through it all, he made sure to let those around him know how much he loved them, admired them, and he made sure to thank anyone who helped him.

Writing is definitely cathartic, and I sat down a day after my grandfather’s passing to write a tribute to him. I wrote it for myself, but I shared it on Facebook so that those who knew my grandfather could enjoy it as well. Now I’m sharing it with all of you. Even though you didn’t know him, we can all learn from the gracious way he lived his life.

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When my grandpa was diagnosed with colon cancer in the mid 90’s, I always feared the day he would leave this earth because I knew I’d have trouble finding the words to accurately express the admiration I had for him. I have been fortunate not to have the cause for finding such words until much later, but now is the moment where I find myself digging through pictures on the computer and words and phrases in my mind trying to accurately craft a representation of the man named Harry M. who influenced so many with his generous spirit.

Five days ago, I stood beside a hospital bed and an oxygen machine that was alternately groaning and sighing. The bed was angled toward an open door that led to a deck that had been enjoyed for only a couple days by my grandfather before he fell ill. I thought for sure I was saying goodbye to my grandpa Harry. His breath was labored; he moaned; he had the “death rattle” that all of us had heard about. By the time I went home, I fully expected to get a call sometime during the night saying that he hadn’t made it.

By Saturday afternoon, my grandpa was coherent, eating, and had drunk a glass and a half of wine. I never did see him after that Friday night vigil. However, the last time I did see him, he opened his eyes long enough to recognize me and tell me he loved me. I held his hand for a long time, fighting back tears as I fought with the denial that this was the end. Although the end didn’t happen that night, that was the end for me, for I didn’t see him again.

After I learned of his passing, and as I went through the motions of attending my sons’ football practice and preparing for the first day of school the next day, I wanted to drive down the streets of my town and shout at the world about what a gentle, caring soul had just left the earth — and I wanted to implore everyone to care, dammit.

Harry was a beautiful soul. He was the kind of person that people talk about and admire but can never truly aspire to be like. He was quiet but caring; anal retentive but generous; resolute in his love for God but hesitant to judge the mortals who dwelled with him on this earth. One of his last thoughts involved his desire for people of all races to get along. He was sick and he was dying, but he still thought about his ideal world — the world he believed God intended.

During the many times Harry was hospitalized, he always made a point to remember the names of the doctors and nurses who cared for him, and this was still true in his final days. He could hardly talk, but he’d whisper a “thank you” to whoever was leaving the room. They’d never met a sweeter man, they said. No matter how much pain he was in or how miserable he felt, he tried his best to make sure to thank those who had helped him.

If you knew him, you are one of the fortunate ones. Those of us who knew him the best will remember several stories about him that are representative of his personality, like the time he set his cruise control to go around the mountains of Montana so that he could get the best possible gas mileage, making the rest of us sick to our stomachs as we rode on that very unexpected carnival ride; or how he would never let us kids cheat at any game because there were RULES and we would follow them; how he loved having everyone together and then proclaiming in the middle of it, “Isn’t this fun?”; how he would call family and strangers alike “friend”: “goodbye, friend” . . . “hello, friend,” . . . and you knew that he meant the term literally; how he loved to walk and exercise and keep track of exactly how long he walked and/or exercised (a pedometer was his best friend); how he used to sing in a big booming voice in church and all of us younger kids were embarrassed when people would turn around and look to see just who was belting out the hymn with such vigor; how he loved family pictures and would always have a big smile on his face for them; the bone-crushing hugs he would give his grandkids; the way Grandpa would ask everyone specific questions about life as if each person was the most important person in the room; how thankful Grandpa was for gifts that touched his heart. (He always made a point to thank me for the calendars I made him each Christmas, telling me how much he enjoyed looking at the pictures on them.)

There is a definite void in the world now — one that can never be filled by another person because the one who left the void was so unique and special. I was one of the lucky ones who had a grandfather who seemed like he was a storybook invention: he was kind, considerate, loving, supportive, and optimistic. Even in his last hours he proclaimed, “Today is going to be a good day . . . a really good day.” While August 20th will never seem like a “really good day” to those he left behind, I know it was probably a good day for Grandpa. He was able to leave this earth surrounded by loved ones after he had the chance to say his goodbyes to those who loved him. The rest of us will be lucky if we get the same chance.

Grandpa lived life deliberately and left a lasting impression on everyone he met. Rest in peace, Grandpa Harry.

I started paging through the bound collection of 1950 House Beautiful magazines that I have lying around here and I started noticing the striking difference — and amazing sameness — of the ads that appear in the magazines then and now. I happened to have some new issues in my massive “someday-I’ll-get-the-chance-to-read-these” pile and I started to contrast what the two years’ issues reveal about us as a society.

Some things never change. Cars will always be the full-page eye candy of the magazines. Although our ads today tend to emphasize more environmentally-friendly features, there are still some common threads. We still want Cadillacs to reveal that yes, we are just a tad bit more successful than the average Joe ….

And we still expect our Toyotas to have a little more zip. (Yes, I know Toyotas didn’t exist in 1950. Play along, will you?)

We still want faucets, toilets, bathtubs, and showers to convey that we have great taste:

But in 1950, even having good choice in a toilet seat alone was a priority. (When’s the last time you’ve seen an ad for toilet seats?)

Beauty and staying young was important to women in 1950. They even took a risk and invested in rather scary contraptions like this all in the name of youth:

Today, rather than having these little ads make up the tiny little ads in the back of the magazine, we get to see full-page ads of Botox-injected, plastic-surgery laden, professionally hairstyled celebrities pretend like they actually use these products to look the way they do.

Call me jaded if you will, but I’m pretty certain Courtney Cox’s hair has never been drenched with any Pantene product. Just a hunch.

In House Beautiful, paint ads in 1950 were full-page and usually in color:

Some things never change:

In 1950, people seemed to be on a constant quest for the perfect, most comfortable mattress. These ads usually were full-page as well:

Our aching backs were definitely an issue back in the day. We wanted something orthopedic … something that would make us sleep like a baby … yet something that was stylish. Behold, 2013:

I made this one larger so you could see the text: “made from certified natural materials.” There’s that environmentalism again.

In 1950, Liz Taylor graced the back cover of the magazine, touting the luxurious carpet that Gulistan had to offer:

And now? AllState Insurance graces the back cover, presumably trying to convince you that once your house is House Beautiful, you need to sign up with them to protect all that beauty.

Here are a couple ads that you just don’t see anymore in modern magazines:

I swear I’m not trying to be repetitive, because I know I’ve pointed out before how you just don’t see ads for candles in modern magazines, but I guess I was struck by how many candle ads I saw in the 1950 issues. Today? Zero. Back in 1950, we could also get away with copious ads for:

What would Mad Men be without the liquor? Today it seems that liquor ads are becoming more frowned-upon. I figure in a few years the liquor companies will suffer the same scorn as the tobacco industry and ads for booze will not exist.

There were a few ads in the 2013 issues of House Beautiful that you just didn’t see in 1950 and definitely reflect our changing values, especially in where our money goes. Behold the annoying, multi-page ads for the latest prescription drugs:

Two pages of ad space for this drug? Show me the money!

While Americans certainly had debt in 1950, it wasn’t as easy to get into debt as whipping out a little plastic card and sliding it through a machine in the name of keeping up with the Joneses.

The text for this ad is interesting: no late fees, no penalty rates, because there are plenty of other things to stress over.

Yeah — how about the DEBT that people are incurring on their credit cards for crap they don’t need? That’s probably the most stressful thing of all. Now go sit in a corner, Citibank, and count your millions.

Lastly, while many people had pets in 1950 and most certainly loved them as much as we do ours today, we definitely show them love them with food a lot more than we used to. In 1950 there were virtually no ads for pet food, kitty litter, or anything else. Now? They’ve got the bucks to take out those full-page ads:

A year ago I made the decision to “de-clutter” my house by selling some tablecloths that had been sitting in my basement for years. They were a gift from my sister, who purchased them at auctions and estate sales, and many of them were in great condition. The only problem was that few of the cloths actually fit my table, and several were not colors that complimented my kitchen. So they sat there and collected dust until I decided to allow someone else to enjoy them. I kept a few of them that I really loved and put the rest up for sale on Etsy.

Within a week, the tablecloths sold, and I was shocked. Wait a minute … people actually wanted tablecloths? I knew that tablecloths were admired by people like me, but I never dreamed that I could actually make a little extra spending money by finding some good ones. I’ve learned a lot in my tablecloth journey, and while I am far from knowing it all, I am definitely wiser than I was a year ago.

Before I listed my tablecloths, I did a little research. Although I can look back now and know that I didn’t ask nearly enough for the cloths that I first sold, I know that was part of the learning process. Pretty soon I’d learn to spot a Wilendure or a Startex in a thrift shop and try not to squeal in delight.

The next learning journey involved stain removal. Many of the cloths I ran across were stained and it pained me to have to point out these flaws when I was listing them, especially if the pattern was a popular one. I started reading about how to successfully stain-treat cloth and get them looking like new. I never dreamed, however, at what a laborious, time-consuming process that was. It involves soaking, stain treating, brushing such treatment in with a toothbrush, soaking some more, inspecting the cloth inch by inch, and lastly waiting for a nice, sunny day to lay the cloth on the grass to dry. Some cloths took up to five days! But there was no greater sense of satisfaction to know that I took a cloth that could have been labeled a “cutter” and made it usable again.

Case in point: one of the cloths that I bought at a garage sale was so badly stained that I questioned whether it was worth the price. It was a great retro-looking cloth with orange flowers and I knew that someone would love it. But could I save it? I wish at this point that I had taken before and after pictures of the cloth, because it was a drastic change. Having been stored in a smoker’s home, the cloth was covered with smoke stains and it took three days of soaking just to remove those. What I thought was an yellowish cloth ended up being a white cloth. Here it was after I rejuvenated it:

It has such a neat 60’s vibe, doesn’t it?

The cloth sat in my basement for several months and received several “favorites” on Etsy before it finally sold yesterday, and I am excited that this cloth will have a new life and be appreciated by someone.

I know … I sound like I’m talking about sending my favorite child off, don’t I? I am embarrassed to admit that I do get a wee bit attached to some of the cloths that have a great color scheme or pattern or are highly collectible but just don’t fit my table well. I found this one in a thrift shop and it was really hard for me to let it go because I loved the color scheme so much:

I called it my “orange juice” cloth because the colors reminded me of those old orange juice pitchers from days of old. Vibrant turquoise, bright orange, and a great retro look. I hope the new owner loves it as much I do.

Just today I noticed that a cloth I just sold on Etsy was going for nearly three times what I listed it for on eBay. It is just a reminder that I have a lot to learn as to what the most sought-after patterns and colors are and to do a little research before I list a tablecloth. In the meantime I have found a great hobby and have learned a little more about vintage textiles.

And I feel like one heck of a powerful woman with a bucket of OxyClean and a tub of warm water, too.

Want to visit my Etsy store? Click on the link along the left-hand side of this blog.

Every now and then I’ll go to Amazon and just type random words into the search bar to see what’s there. One of my favorite words, of course, is “retro.” I’m always curious to see what retro products are available now. Sometimes it’s depressing, as in the case of one of my recent posts when I talked about the retro products that had to announce that they were retro by putting the word “Nostalgia” on them. Seriously. It’s like making a coffee cup and emblazoning “FOR COFFEE” on it. We get it. We know its style and purpose already.

So I went to Amazon and put in my favorite search terms and came up with some gems. First up — a retro condiment set:It’s something so simple, yet they did it right this time. Three bottles — one for ketchup, mustard, and a clear one that you can do pretty much whatever with — are included with retro pictures. The only way they could have improved this product was if they had used a retro font and varied the pictures on each one. Still … these are cool. They are normally seven dollars from Amazon, but as of this writing, they are on sale for just under six.

Just in case you need a place to put your new retro condiment bottles, you could always get a condiment caddy to easily put everything on the table at once. (Sadly, your clear miscellaneous bottle will be left out, but I think it’ll recover from the disappointment.) Since I’ve obviously gotten stuck on a theme here, let’s explore the next item:

I was given this next item as a Christmas gift. Although it normally wouldn’t have been something I bought myself, I am here to say that these things have a purpose in life. (The same cannot be said for any of the Kardashians, but this phone rocks.)

This retro handset plugs into your cell phone. While you may look like a dork using it (I keep mine in my car), it provides a much more comfortable way to talk on the phone for an extended period of time. With modern phones, there’s no good way to grip the phone while talking. You either a) press it up against your face until your words sound like mhphmphmphphphrmphmmmph, or b) you grip the phone along the sides with your fingertips until you get spasmodic cramping, or c) you use the spearkerphone feature, which is just an awkward way to talk on the phone because of those wonderful times when two people are trying to talk at the same time and the phone can’t handle that kind of excitement, so you get those awkward pauses when no one is quite sure when to talk.

In short, this handset is an answer to most of your worldly problems. Plug it in, grip it like a man (or a woman), and feel confident that people are definitely laughing at you while they pass you on the interstate. Someone’s gotta liven up that interstate driving; it might as well be you. The best part is that as of this writing, this handset is majorly on sale! Eight bucks …. a huge discount off the normal price of around thirty-five dollars. These handsets come in a variety of colors. (Mine is pink.)

If you are a fan of vintage metal lawn chairs and you happen to see someone selling them at a decent price, let me give you a bit of advice: jump on those suckers like they are trying to smuggle your TV out your front door. I’ve learned this one the hard way; this is a trend that has started to come back into style and the “real deal” vintage models are incredibly popular. Just a couple weeks ago I saw some on one of those local “garage sale” groups on Facebook, and I made the fatal mistake of taking a few breaths before thinking about getting them. Poof! They were gone. Who knew lawn chairs could be such a hot commodity?

Just in case you don’t have the luck or the patience to try to find the real deal, the next best thing is definitely these chairs from Amazon. They qualify for Amazon Prime shipping as well! Judging by the “only x left in stock” warning, these are just as popular online as they are locally.

This last product isn’t from Amazon, it’s from Retro Planet. As I’ve made clear before, I am a sucker for retro fonts and images. Not the chintzy ones that seem to be put on a million metal signs and held up as authentic vintage decor, but for things that seem genuinely retro — not cartoonish reproductions.

These are kind of spendy towels, about six bucks, but I imagine the average person would only have a handful of these to decorate their kitchen. It’s retro without being contrived, and in my book, that makes it perfect.

Although I have been to all the western states and a handful of the eastern states, I know I haven’t seen all the beautiful places in the United States, or the world, for that matter. Someday I’d love to see the Smoky Mountains and the rest of North Carolina. I’d love to see New York City and Boston for the historical sights. I’d like to see the Civil War Battlefields for the same reason. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do those things, but it’s on my travel bucket list.

Last week my sister and I packed up the car and headed out with the kids to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Growing up in South Dakota, I’ve been to the hills many, many times — for church camp five years in a row, for spring break trips, for random trips with friends and family, etc. I’ve seen Mount Rushmore so many times that I could probably sculpt a mini version out of clay. It wouldn’t be good or representative of the actual sculpture. I never promised that.

When I was in my 20s I started going to Deadwood and became enthralled in the western history of that little town. In the 80s, Deadwood was brought back from the dead by gambling. The little town began to attract more and more tourists, which was good. What wasn’t so good is that now the town is starting to lose its old west feel and is starting to take on an atmosphere of Vegas. OK, maybe not to that extent, but I hate driving into town only to be greeted with a modern looking hotel. Some of the older buildings have been razed and replaced with glitzy hotels or bars. Little by little there is an artificial glaze starting to creep over Deadwood and it’s ruining it for me. I still love the town, but don’t want to spend a lot of time there as I had in the past.

As much as I love the Black Hills, being there makes me depressed about what it is becoming. We stayed in a pretty touristy rental house in the Terry Peak region. The house happened to be along the “main drag” of the rental houses and so there was a lot of traffic and a lot of noise. I did not enjoy sitting on the deck listening to a loud party going on across the valley or hearing every word of the neighbors’ conversations as they hot tubbed. I much prefer to experience the Black Hills in peace and quiet. No neighbors. No tourist traps. That, however, is becoming harder to find as the years go by.

If you’re ever in the hills, make sure to reserve a couple of days to drive through Spearfish Canyon and through Custer State Park. Depending on the day, the traffic can be heavy through both of those places, but I’d recommend going early in the morning to beat the other tourists out of bed. Spearfish Canyon has a lot of stops you can make along the way — different waterfalls, historical sites, trails to hike, etc. If you get there on a day like we had there — where it was mild weather and cloudless skies, you will probably stop to gawk at the awesome contrast between the blue skies, white rock formations, and green pines. The colors are so vibrant that I was constantly trying to capture them with my camera. However, without the help of Photoshop, the digital version is never equal to seeing it with your own two eyes.

Gold mining has always been a part of the hills since it’s been settled and today is no different. Although the famous Homestake mine ceased operation some years ago, there’s a new one to take its place: the Wharf mine. This thing is HUGE and is currently adjacent to the Terry Peak region. There’s a little platform that visitors can go stand on to watch the operations, and my sister and I did take that opportunity. It’s rather depressing, though. There you have this open gaping pit that is a flurry of activity — then your eyes stray beyond the open pit to the miles of beautiful pines. You can’t help thinking of what the same view used to look like without this eyesore of a mine. Yes, I understand that the Wharf mine is providing millions of dollars in development funds to Lead and neighboring towns. However, there’s no one who can argue with the fact that the thing is just plain ugly.

Despite having to view the mining operations, the hills have always been and will always be one of my favorite places on this earth. Most people remember or know the Hills as the place where Mount Rushmore is. I am here to say that seeing Mt. Rushmore is important and interesting, but after seeing it one or two times, the magic of the place is gone. (Trust me … I’ve seen Mt. Rushmore about a dozen times.) If you’ve never been to the hills before, go see Mt. Rushmore (and maybe the Crazy Horse memorial as well), spend some hours in Deadwood, and then spend the rest of your time soaking up the awesome scenery. The hills are good for the soul; I truly believe that.

School ended nearly a month ago and I am finally getting around to some of the things I’d been putting off, like cleaning my house. Or breathing. Showering, too. Ha ha! Just kidding. Well, not about the house. It’s like an episode of Hoarders some days.

Now that June is nearly over, I have to start turning my brain back on, and that’s always kind of a letdown. I always reserve June as my “stop thinking and just relax” month. Trust me — it’s needed after the end of the school year, which is always brutal. I know teachers sound like whiners when we say this, but until you’ve been there and done that, then you have no idea.

The first vacation I took this year was to Nebraska. If you’ve read this blog before, then you’re probably thinking that you remember reading something about a Nebraska vacation before. If that’s the case, then you’d be right. I did take a Nebraska vacation last year with my honey. This year we decided to do it again just to make sure we covered the entire state.

Last year we traveled extensively along Highways 20 and 30, marveling at the intensely heavy train traffic, and also venturing off the main roads to explore some rural roads that seemed to stretch into infinity. Here’s one of my pics from last year:

While some people’s idea of vacations might be lounging on a Florida beach or living the night life in Vegas, my vacations tend to head the opposite direction. I like take a break from crowds of people. I like seeing rural life. I love driving through small towns and taking pictures of the old signage that they still have. My honey is the same way, so we enjoy the simple things like driving through Nebraska.

This year we took a different path, driving 1800 miles in all. I used a program called Trip Tracker to chart our journey. The program drops pins every so many miles and you can put specific tags on the map as well. It’s hard to read the specific towns we went through unless the map is zoomed in, but this gives you a general idea:

Day one: Sioux Falls to Valentine, Nebraska.

Day two: Valentine to Scottsbluff. As you can see, we did not take the direct route. Lots of stops and driving through small towns along the way ….

Day 3: Scottsbluff to Chadron

Day 4: Chadron to Grand Island

Day 5: Grand Island to Fremont, home of the Uncle Sam’s antique store that I absolutely LOVE. Lots of great ’50s antiques and cracked ice tables and chairs!

The next day we drove from Fremont back to South Dakota.

I picked up these great trays from Uncle Sam’s this year:

I wrote about this store last year after driving through Fremont. If you are a fan of the 50s and all things retro (especially retro tables and chairs), then make sure you visit this store! The basement is full of retro goodies:

There’s a little something for everyone, I do believe.

Anyway … the trip to Nebraska was so much fun and so relaxing. I loved seeing the beautiful Nebraska countryside and driving through so many remote small towns that were clinging to life after many decades of decline. While it was sad to see, it was inspiring to see the efforts that some towns were making to keep themselves relevant.

Although many of the pictures I took this year revolved around old school buildings and the Sand Hills, I managed to shoot some other interesting sights as well:

I absolutely love it when I can see stretches of the old highway alongside the new one. There’s just something haunting about seeing the asphalt get overtaken with weeds and crumbling as it sits abandoned.

(I’m weird. I know.)

This water is called the Dismal River, but here it provides a beautiful scene as it winds itself around the valley near Thedford.

I had never seen Chimney Rock before, and it was a neat experience to view this landmark that so many pioneers had viewed along the Oregon Trail. There’s a little cemetery near the viewing spot that provides a gentle reminder that to strike out on the trail was a risk, and some didn’t make it to their destinations.

I’m not sure who decided to actually pave Whitman Road, which runs north out of Whitman, but it’s an oddity in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. This is a one-lane road that stretches on for what seems like eternity. If you travel it, you will be rewarded with the views of desolate, sparsely populated, yet beautiful country. The road is rough so I wouldn’t recommend taking your little Ford Focus down this road. A vehicle with AWD or 4WD would be a good idea.

This sign, found in Scottsbluff, made my day. What a great sign! So much color and it just conveys happiness.

I originally thought this old theater was still in operation … until I realized that the “movie posters” were actually ads for the chiropractor who now operates a business there.

As always, I was able to capture some great signs that are still holding onto life along the highways of America. Long live neon and arrows!

When a person is collecting things, there’s usually not a whole lot of patience that goes along with it, especially when that person gets a bug in his/her head to go get something NOW. It was that way with my cracked ice table. I had a small bit of patience, because I really wanted a vintage set, but after looking for a couple years and finding nothing that was affordable or in good enough condition to put in my kitchen, I turned to creating a new one. The downside is that I have a knockoff of the cracked ice laminate that isn’t a pearly and vivid as the original. But it looks nice, and it’s different, and all the dings and scratches are from me and my kids.

I’ve been searching for some chevron cabinet pulls for some time. Having only run into them in small batches on eBay, Etsy, or in antique stores, I found that they’re usually way overpriced and hard to locate. So imagine my surprise when I saw on a local garage sale group on Facebook that there were 16 of these babies available for a decent price.

Happy Mother’s Day to me with this find!

Not sure where I’m going to put them yet, as I have far more than 16 cabinet pulls to replace in my kitchen. For now I am going to hold onto them, having faith that I will eventually find the perfect place to put these.

Today, we are gathered to pretend to mourn the death of one of the worst phases in decorating history: the phase where the only appliances available came in black, stainless steel, white, or beige.

Looking through old magazines, I always loved how color coordinated kitchens could be in the 1950s, 60s, and even 70s. Case in point:

You want a kitchen with a blue fridge and a blue stove to match your blue linoleum and everything else? No problem.

Red has started to return as an accent color in electronics; a few years ago I noticed red microwaves and toasters starting to seep into the mix, and now red coffee makers are beginning to appear. Even KitchenAid recognized this trend early in the game and started offering their mixers in a variety of bright, cheery colors:

I myself have coveted the Pistachio and Bayleaf colors since they came out; oh, they’d look so nice in my kitchen and would beat the “gunmetal gray” KitchenAid I received from my mom about fifteen years ago. But hey, it was free, so who am I to complain?

It is so nice to see colors back on the shelves so that kitchens can indeed look unique. I’ve had enough of stainless steel boringness to last a lifetime. Kitchens are supposed to look cozy, not like the cold, impersonal kitchens of the local restaurants. Color helps create that.

Now, instead of being forced to live with a boring black coffeemaker, we can use it as an accent with a bright red one. This one’s from Shopko:

While color is certainly welcome in my eyes, it’s the cheap retro-themed appliances that are maddening to me. I love the retro trend, but for the love of God, could someone design a truly retro themed appliance that didn’t have to ANNOUNCE that it was retro?

See the writing on the top? While I was initially appreciative of the retro font they used, I was annoyed by the label it spelled out: Nostalgia Electronics. Even worse, the little oval plate on the bottom announces “RetroSeries.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah …. we GET it. Certainly one can’t look at a red microwave with art deco features and not understand it’s a retro look. Thanks for letting us know!

(Just for the record, I realize that a retro-themed microwave is an anachronism and that it doesn’t even make logical sense. Just throwing that out there …)

Nostalgia Electronics also offers a cool looking refrigerator, but again, they ruin it by stating the obvious:

*sigh*

Anyway … I’m still waiting for this trend to continue to the point where we can not only have a variety of colors available, but also a variety of styles.

I don’t normally do movie reviews, but I rely very heavily on reader comments on Amazon and Netflix before I watch a movie, so why not spread the word about movies I like as well? This past weekend, while trying to find a movie to enjoy after a long day of work, I stumbled upon a movie called Searching for Sugarman. I kept clicking past it, not thinking it looked like anything good. Who cares about where Sugarman is — whoever he is? But then I noticed that the movie had a nearly perfect rating out of several hundred reviews. So, I took another look.

It turns out that Sugarman is the nickname of a 1970s singer-songwriter named Rodriguez. Never gaining popularity in the United States, his recording career fizzled out after a couple of years, even though his hippie-era music and lyrics fit right in with the Bob Dylan-type music that was so popular at the time. Because Rodriguez was a little late to the scene is the reason that his music never took off; after all, the US had been getting a steady dose of anti-establishment hippie music for a few years and perhaps there wasn’t room for yet another peace-loving guitar strummer.

However, I think that any good singer-songwriter will find a niche eventually; it just depends on what part of the world really needs that music at that time. Turns out that Rodriguez’s music struck a chord with apartheid-riddled South Africa.

The problem was that Rodriguez never knew that his music had sold half a million copies there. When his career failed to take off and his label eventually dropped him, Sixto Rodriguez faded out of the tiny spotlight he was in and settled into regular life in Michigan, eventually working in the demolition business.

Fast forward twenty years … a journalist became curious about where Rodriguez had ended up after his brief career. Part of the reason why no one had searched fro him is because the rumor mill had a fantastic story about the night that Rodriguez supposedly killed himself — in front of an audience. For years it was passed around as true, and no one thought that the rumor may just be a bunch of crap.

So, as all good “driven journalist” stories, this one didn’t give up. He kept digging until eventually his story about his search reached Rodriguez’s daughter, who promptly contacted the journalist, eventually leading to a phone call from the man himself.

I couldn’t help but smile as the journalist recounted the night he received a phone call from this artist. In fact, the movie sets up the viewer to believe that the rumored on-stage suicide was really what happened to Rodriguez, and as the mystique of this man grows, so does our own curiosity. Imagine finding out that Elvis was still alive and that he decided to give you, his biggest fan, a call to say hey. That’s how it felt to this journalist, and his excitement comes across to the viewer at full blast.

Finally about halfway through the documentary, we meet Rodriguez. We first see him in dark profile, then in an interview setting. Despite being out of the public eye for decades, the man has the “rocker” look down pat, but he comes across as extremely shy as he hides behind his dark glasses. The documentary takes us on a journey to South Africa as he plays his first concert in over 20 years to a packed arena. The aging songwriter, clad in black, looks every part the Johnny Cash of folk singers as he owns the stage as if he hadn’t been working a blue collar job in his “other” life.

Movie reviewer Marshall Fine (from the website Hollywood & Fine) nicely summed up the overall parallel of Rodriguez to his sudden thrust into fame that he sought 30 years before:

“And that’s the beauty of this film: that it captures the resurrection of a dream. There is something so even-tempered, almost Zen, about Rodriguez that this sudden revival of a dream deferred, while obviously gratifying and fulfilling for him as an artist, doesn’t change him as a man.”

I always enjoy documentaries that tell stories I have never heard, and this movie entertained me from beginning to end. It’s always refreshing to hear the stories of humble people who do things not for fame and fortune but simply because they enjoy doing something. It’s refreshing to know that for every computer-aided Barbie or Ken doll out there who is groomed to be a face rather than a true singing talent, there’s someone like Sixto Rodriguez who cancels them out, so to speak.